On December 30, 2009, when many Canadians are on vacation, when schools are shut and cannot discuss current events, when Parliament cannot speak to issues, the Prime Minister of our fair land proved that he does not believe that there should fair and just discourse on the matters of state in this country.

Tradition has it that the Prime Minister takes a walk across the street from his official residence at 24 Sussex Drive to the Governor General's digs a 1 Sussex Drive. He did close to that last year when he drove across. At the time he feared that a Coalition would take his larger home, armoured car and $100,000 salary increase.  This time he just phoned the GG and told her that he's pulling the plug. There are no records of the conversation.  It could have been anything from Listen you blah, blah, blah if you don't blah, blah, blah to a polite conservation about the awful winters in Ottawa and oh by the way, I'm pulling the plug on this session of Parliament. We will never know how these things are decided.

The accountability guy who promised he would be different, would operate a clear and open government has shut down Parliament so that the will of Parliament to whom he is servant not master will not be done. He also is the Prime Minister who promised that he would not appoint Senators, yet we will have in the next few days more appointed Senators than in any time in our history. And this was the guy who was going to do things differently.

The goal of these appointments is also to stop discussion, to give the government a free run in the Senate. We should just change his name to Dictator for life Harper. There are other issues such a our pro tar sands climate plan, the very urgent need as stated by our Minister of Justice to reform the criminal justice system that are also being put on hold.

All bills that had been introduced, moved to committee etc will have to be re-introduced, debated amended etc. because of this move by our Prime Minister. I'm wondering if each and every member is going to be paid by the Conservative Party for doing this work a second time. Talk about disrespect for our tax dollars.

We need change in this country. The change is not from Conservative to Liberal minorities but change in the way we choose our representatives.

The House of Commons needs to reflect the make up of the country.

Proportional representation needs to reflect the votes of Canadians. Nine percent of the national vote in a few ridings in one province should not get you 50 seats and nine percent of the vote spread out from sea to sea to sea should not get you any seats.

Also we need to take away the power of the Prime Minister to appoint Senators. These are not representatives of the people. Simply put, they are over paid puppets manipulated by the PMO. Canada wake up and vote for real change.

If you want to protest this atrocious act of demagoguery join the over 81,000 Canadians who have joined the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook site and find out about the rally's planned across Canada January to fight this affront to democracy.

Stuart Starbuck

Green Party of Canada Candidate in Simcoe Grey

Tottenham Ontario